Safe Storage Gun Laws: Accidental Deaths, Suicides and Crime

It is frequently assumed that safe storage gun laws reduce accidental gun deaths and total suicides, while the possible impact on crime rates are ignored. However, given existing work on the adverse impact of other safety laws, such as safety caps for storing medicine, even the very plausible assumption of reduced accidental gun deaths cannot be taken for granted. Our paper analyzes both state and county data spanning nearly twenty years, and we find no support that safe storage laws reduce either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides. Instead, these storage requirements appear to impair people's ability to use guns defensively. Because accidental shooters also tend to be the ones most likely to violate the new law, safe storage laws increase violent and property crimes against low risk citizens with no observable offsetting benefit in terms of reduced accidents or suicides. During the first five full years after the passage of the safe storage laws, the group of fifteen states that adopted these laws faced an annual average increase of over 300 more murders, 3,860 more rapes, 24,650 more robberies, and over 25,000 more aggravated assaults. On average, the annual costs borne by victims averaged over $2.6 billion as a result of lost productivity, out-of-pocket expenses, medical bills, and property losses.gun control, crime, suicide, accidental death

Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births

Abortion may prevent the birth of ''unwanted'' children, who would have relatively small investments in human capital and a higher probability of crime. On the other hand, some research suggests that legalizing abortion increases out-of-wedlock births and single parent families, which implies the opposite impact on investments in human capital and thus crime. The question is: what is the net impact? We find evidence that legalizing abortion increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent. Previous estimates are shown to suffer from not directly linking the cohorts who are committing crime with whether they had been born before or after abortion was legal.crime, abortion, out-of-wedlock briths, human capital

Civic orientation predictors of Black students: an exploratory study

Institutions are becoming more cognizant of preparing students for global leadership through measures such as service-learning and community service. Colby and her colleagues (2003) suggest that institutions should guide students to believe that they are members of a shared social structure. Black students are a group whose civic participation has sharply declined between the 1970s and 1990s (Putnam, 2000) when 50 years ago they were one of the most active civic groups (Davis, 1993). This exploratory study investigated the relationships between Black students’ citizenship perspectives and independent variables such as institution type, racial identity, gender, classification, major, age, and socioeconomic status (SES). This research included a total sample of 379 Black students who attended, one of four universities. These were, according to the Carnegie classifications: (1) a large public master’s college and university I, predominantly White institution (PWI) in the South; (2) a large public master’s college and university I, historically Black institution (HBI) in the South; (3) a large public doctoral-extensive, PWI in the South; or (4) a large public doctoral-extensive, HBI in the South. Students completed two surveys, the Revised Service Experience (RSE) survey and the Black racial identity scale (B-RIAS). This exploratory factor analysis study combined elements of citizenship related to values, knowledge, skills, efficacy, and commitment (Eyler & Giles, 1999) to create factors. After ensuring that the factors held meaning, they were used as dependent variables. The Black racial identity stages (Helms & Parham, 1985), which is the extent to which Blacks identify with other Blacks, were utilized as independent variables, along with institution type, major, age, gender, classification, and SES for subsequent regression models to explore the relationships to the citizenship factors. Results show that seven factors underlie the RSE, while three factors underlie the B-RIAS. Regression results indicate that students who possess higher racial identity stages score significantly higher on some civic measures than those students who possessed lower racial identity attitudes. Women scored significantly higher on some civic measures than men. Students who belong to a hard-science major scored significantly lower on some civic measures than students who belonged to soft-science majors

Should schools have teachers carry guns?

With 20 states having teachers and staff carrying guns to varying degrees on school property, we don’t need to guess how the policy would work. Fears of teachers carrying guns in terms of accidents or other problems have not materialized.Letting teachers carry is the only effective way to overcome the strategic advantages of mass public killers.The other alternatives to preventing mass public shootings have real limits

Does the Federal Law Forbidding People under Domestic Violence Restraining Orders from Possessing Firearms Save Lives?

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments concerning Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) which forbids individuals who are under a Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) from possessing firearms. This paper analyzes the potential costs of overturning that law. We estimate a variety of models to determine the effect of the law on domestic murders, domestic femicides, domestic gun murders, and domestic gun femicides. We subject the analysis to a variety of robustness checks. The results are remarkably robust. We find that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) does not significantly reduce domestic murder, domestic femicide, domestic gun murder, or domestic gun femicide